Category: Family

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Elia January 2019

So Elia’s birthday party was in the beginning of January instead of December mostly because of scheduling around that time. Elia originally wanted her birthday to be at Busy Bees again because she has had her birthday there a couple of times before, but even though Curie was at the minimum cut off at 46 inches, none of Curie’s friends would be able to make it if we held it there. We had a few discussions about where to have the party, but Elia was pretty adamant. Then one day after going to Jumpin’ Joeys for a friend’s party. Elia came to us and said that she wanted to have her party at Jumpin’ Joey’s because otherwise Curie’s friends couldn’t come. What an amazing little girl! Continue reading “Elia January 2019”

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Erin’s Birthday

I am grateful to have Erin as my partner in this dance of life. I love how she is with the kids and her willingness to not only put up with my antics, but to grow with me in our respective areas of development. I love that we spend time learning to laugh at our foibles and be humbled by the magnitude of life.
The reason this FB birthday message is late is simple: we gave Erin Mario Kart 8 for her birthday in lieu of flowers. She couldn’t play it with the family without extra controllers so we bought her some controllers, and then realized that she did not have anything to play it on, so, yes, now we have a Switch. Two stories about this. Just before we started dating I bought Erin “Love Actually” for Christmas and then sent her a DVD player so that she would have something to watch it with. And… for our wedding registry I put pots and pans and a Roomba on the list, and Erin put a Wii, Rockband, Guitar Hero and Mario Kart on. So yeah, no time to write pleasantries, need to learn to drift and throw turtle shells again (oh and to watch the kids learn to play is adorable).
Happy Birthday Erin, and thank you.
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Curie December 2018

So it is remarkable how life can envelope your time especially during the holidays and beyond, which is to say, we are behind in blogging again. For the record, it has been a month since this blog was supposed to be written, and so now we are relying on memory and pictures to recount what happened. The winter holidays are not as carefree as they might be when you work at a non-profit. It is the end of the year and it is an important time to solicit donors who are also thinking about charitable giving in relation to their taxes and tax brackets; so Erin especially has a lot of work at the end of a year.  Continue reading “Curie December 2018”

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Montreal Urban Hiking and Food Crawl 2018

Montreal Food Crawl. Not shown, the most expensive Roy Rogers at rest stops on the way up and back, the club lounge breakfasts and appetizers (including duck and smoked salmon), the museum cafe, some of the other food court purchases and other snacks. Otherwise, from upper left to right,1) Hakata Ramen – one of Albert’s favorites, 2) Nudo – and tossed noodles, and a bit of a disappointment, too doughy and too sweet, Continue reading “Montreal Urban Hiking and Food Crawl 2018”

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NICU 2018

As many of you know, each year we go back to Virginia Hospital Center’s Labor and Delivery and NICU, to drop off some chocolate and thank them for their treatment of Erin in Labor and Delivery, PACU and post-op, and for Curie’s 4 days in NICU, and Elia’s 18 days in NICU. Curie was 4 pounds and 7 ounces and had trouble with jaundice and eating. Elia was 4 pounds 8 ounces and had some pulmonary trouble and eating as well. William Schimmel once said of his kids, “you never want to be in NICU, but once you are there, you are glad you are.” I have repeated this line to so many people after our own experience. We also always reference James, and Analise (for Curie) and Ray (for Elia) and Emma for Erin who restored our faith in the hospital by taking care of us so well after being abandoned in the bathroom post-op by another nurse. Thank you again. Curie on the left, Elia on the right. Curie just lost her first tooth, and Elia registered in the 40th percentile in height in her last check-in.

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Elia December 2018

Even though Elia’s birthday is in December, because we write hers from the 15th to the 15th, the events of her birthday will fall in the next blog post. Strangely, we will write about Thanksgiving now and her birthday and Christmas then. We could have made Elia’s posts on the month but that would have meant writing two at the same time, which would be quite onerous. In any case, Thanksgiving.

Our Thanksgiving, Christmas schedule is largely decided upon by Albert’s family and since they met up in October for Columbus day, we found ourselves not having any Thanksgiving plans. We did need to take the kids out to another country this year, but since our house had not yet rented and we were paying both rent and mortgage, we felt hesitant to do anything more than to drive to Canada again. Continue reading “Elia December 2018”